Revival of the Raven~Chap. 9
Revival of the Raven
Chap. 9: “You and I Will Burn, Sister”
Author: Hello everyone! I’m sorry for that short chap I published like a week ago, I was so busy, but now that Veteran’s Day is fast approaching I have time to send this one out to all of my supporters!
Drosselmeyer: *Hmph* It’s very rude to keep your audience waiting, especially with that last one you made! It should have been longer!
Author: Hai, sensei! I will do my very best for this one! And here is where we left off, enjoy!
‘The Raven King only laughed at the threat imposed by his enemy as he walked toward the town to find his daughter’s house.’
As the boys went to find Ahiru, Rue walked into town to find Lede. She didn’t know where the house could be or what it looked like, but for some reason Rue felt a powerful aura as she walked down one of the streets alit with lanterns. Her footsteps clicked against the cobblestone of Dia Ble St. as she blindly followed the shady sensation within her heart.
Rue’s journey came to a stop at this large house with a Gothic doorway and a metal garden fence covered with greenish-brown vines and large red flowers with black dots inside of them. Rue’s eyes slowly rose from the fence to the grayish-white windows and she saw a dark figure moving in one of the rooms.
‘Gasp, what the…who was that? Could that be Ahiru…or maybe it’s that witch!?’ Rue thought as the cold wind blew all around her, causing her to shiver in fear. Rue shakily climbed the steps of the old wooden porch and softly knocked on the door. ‘Creeeaaaakkk’ went the door as it opened by the force of the wind and Rue’s hand.
She jumped back in fright and called out, “Hello is anybody there? Ahiru?” No one answered and that made Rue all the more nervous. She peered up at the ill-lighted house’s windows and once more she saw a figure moving in one of the rooms.
“Oh God, why me? I wish Mytho was here.” Rue whispered to the night. Her gaze went back toward the open door and all she saw was the darkness. Rue swallowed the fear in her voice and stepped inside the house. After taking at least 3 steps, the door suddenly slammed shut!
Rue swiftly turned around and gripped the door knob, but it wouldn’t budge, and then she heard:
“Hehehe! Little prima donna, are you scared? Do not worry, I’ll be there. To squeeze you and choke you, until you bleed. Little prima donna, I shall feed….Shhhh!”
Rue screamed in terror over the song, but someone put their hand over her mouth, while the other squeezed her throat and raised her body from the ground.
“You seem surprised, my dear. Don’t worry I just want to meet you.” The stranger grasped Rue’s neck hard as they struck a match and lit a candle.
Rue blearily saw the light of the candle and merely squeaked when she saw brown skin and black feathers against the golden glow of the candlestick. The light arose from the ground and was held at Rue’s face.
“It’s her, Lede of Nevar!” dreadfully thought as her eyes scanned Lede’s abysmal eyes and bronzed skin tone. “She’s so beautiful, yet her touch is as cold as the wind outside.”
Lede could only sneer at the face Rue made as she struggled to breathe. She dropped Rue on the ground and leaned against a large cherry wood table in the middle of the room. Lede watched Rue taking deep breaths as tears formed in her eyes.
When Rue finally got back to normal, she steadily raised her head to see Lede looking down on her as if she was nothing but an insect!
“Tell me where my friend is.” Rue demanded. Lede’s eyes narrowed at the command and let her aura overpower Rue. The girl fell to her knees in shock and terror.
“You have little manners toward your seniors, eh little prima donna?” Lede cynically remarked, “Do you think I would tell you? And to think you were one of the “clever ones” that averted Father’s attention. It’s pathetic.”
Rue weakly stood up and turned her gaze on Lede once more. “Do you hate me, Lede?”
“Yes, I do. You were the one Father favored above all others, even though you were a filthy human brat, blessed with our noble blood and power. Then to top it off, he made you into that false princess and let you command us to follow you without question. I have seen many of my comrades die because of you and your ‘precious Prince’.”
“Lede, I am sorry for what I’ve done to you and the others, but I had no choice. I was being controlled by the Raven King. We are sisters, Lede. We suffered through the same thing!” Rue pleaded. Without warning, Lede had Rue pressed against the glass of the windows, she ran her long black fingernails against her back and neck, wings splayed out in expanse cutting Rue’s legs, and leaned forward to whisper,
“We are not the same, and you are not my SISTER! I do not share any relations to a traitorous whore, who blatantly abandons others for the ‘love of a Prince’!” Lede gripped Rue’s hair hard, while cutting her legs with her nails, “You will feel what pain truly is. You will suffer, you will cry, and most of all I shall watch your despair and torment you for all eternity.”
Lede pulls back from Rue and flings her through the glass window. Rue lands painfully on the cobblestone of Dia Ble St. covered in glass and a few black feathers. Her dress was torn and dirty, hair full of broken wood fragments and leaves, and her legs and hands had shallow cuts bleeding. Rue kept tried to get up but froze when she felt Lede’s stare. She felt a murderous intent through those cold, black eyes.
“I can feel so much hate in those eyes. In the dark it’s like she has no eyes, b-but I know she is looking at me, because I-I can feel it…oh God! What have I done?”
Rue began to run far away from the calamitous house, wincing with every step due to her cuts. She kept running blindly until she bumped into someone. She braced herself for another trip on the cold ground; instead she felt warm hands holding her.
Rue opened her eyes and stared at emerald-reddish eyes and an arrogant smirk. Rue pushed away from him, her hand upon her heart, and breathed a bit faster when she fully took notice of the stranger.
He was tall and lean, like Fakir, his hair was as midnight black, and his eyes held danger and desire within those jaded orbs. Rue felt a familiar dread within her and recognized the mysterious lad from today’s carnival!
“I-it’s you!” Rue wearily said. The boy merely shrugged at her response and walked toward the house Rue came from, but as he passed her he, in a sinister way, laughed in her ear.
“Is he mocking me? H-h-how dare he! But why do I feel such horrible sense of knowing him?” Rue suspected as she continued to walk back to the Academy.
“Well, it seems as though my offspring has had a little fun with her former sibling…I hope she didn’t do too much damage. Although, judging from her state of dress it’s not so bad as to the cuts and bruise upon her neck and legs.” The Raven King assumed as he held his ex-ward in his arms, with his black jacket covering his arms and hands; for he didn’t want to touch human filth.
When the traitor opened her eyes and pushed away from the Raven King, he merely shrugged indifference toward her small feat and gathered his jacket on his shoulders. He took account of her state and walked past her, smiling all the way.
He walked toward the obscure manor of his ‘newfound favorite’ ebony child. Dante ascended the creaky wooden stairs, careful to avoid the glass, and entered through the wide open passage on the house. There were candles alit on the dusky shelves, dangerously close to many books and linen coverage, and there he saw her.
Lede sat on top of the cherry wooden table, carving an inscription on the outer rims in German:
Ein Geschwisterkind ist gleich dem anderen und weiß, der andere Geheimnisse, so wie klug es sein kann, wenn sie wie die anderen brechen kennen und der Schmerz ist härter als eines Liebhabers.
(A sibling is equal to the other and knows of the other's secrets; so how clever it can be when they know how to break the other and the pain is fiercer than a lover's).
“Lede, my child has the Prince’s harlot upset you so much that you would throw her out of the window?” the Raven King presumed.
Lede merely shrugged and laughed in joy of her finished inscription. She got off the table and tilted it on the ground, and then she took one of the candles and set it aflame. The Fire caught onto everything and then Lede turned to her father and said, “Father, it appears that ‘Princess Kraehe’ can still find us, even though she turned against you. I think it’s time to further our plan of revenge on all of them. Setting this place on fire will cause such heartache for my ward, and that is when you take advantage of her. Make her yours and soon you will have all the power in the world!” Lede foresaw, all the while her face was emotionless, she was cruelly laughing at him.
“I shall not forget this gift, Lede of Nevar.” The Raven King exclaimed as they walked into the enchanted mirror, escaping the flames and shutting out the people on the streets, watching the house burn to the ground.
Fakir searched throughout the village and ran toward the center of town. He dejectedly sat down on one of the benches, looked up at the pitch-black sky.
“Where are you, Ahiru? Please, come back to me. I miss you and it is with you I can be myself and become a better man…with you by my side.” Fakir sighed in his head. His eyes were upon the sky and suddenly he noticed a fiery glow in the sky.
He stood up from his resting place and looked toward the village and saw that a house was on fire! Thinking Ahiru would be at the center of it all, Fakir raced toward Dia Ble St. and found it crowded with the village people in their nightwear, while some the fire department was hastily putting the fire out.
“Oh dear, isn’t that wear that family, the Nevars, lived? Oh dear, I hope that nice young girl is not inside!” cried one of the neighbors of the blazing house. Fakir instantly felt on edge and raced toward the house shouting Ahiru’s name into the fire. The firemen quickly stopped him, as the rest finished putting the fire out.
When all of the flames went out, they went inside the soggy, decrepit manor. One team searched upstairs, while the other searched the first floor; Fakir went with the later team.
He saw wet, blackened books and furniture, a table with a piece of German inscription falling into the dusky puddle of wet soot and wood. Fakir searched through the living room, dining room, bathroom, and kitchen, but he did not see anything out of the ordinary. He was about to give a relieved sigh until he heard, “Hey, we got a stiff up here in the 1st bedroom!”
Before any of the firemen could turn toward the voice, Fakir was already on the last step to the 2nd floor. He raced over fallen debris and charcoal rugs and found the first bedroom door. He looked through the doorway and saw the firemen cover the blackened body, which lay on a makeshift stretcher of wet blankets and a red blouse.
“No, please don’t be Ahiru!” He whispered as he slowly walked toward the group. He asked if they could lift the cover.
“What you know this person, kid?” asked one of the firemen. Fakir stiffly nodded and watched as the grey cover lifted from the victims face.
Fakir nearly screamed in horror and relief to find that it was not Ahiru, but another girl’s body. Then he saw a necklace resting in between the lady’s chest.
“This must be Lede! I recognize that necklace from when Ahiru was Princess Tutu.” He despondently thought as the men took the body away.
After seeing the “body of Lede of Nevar” and identifying it, Fakir resigned himself to tell Ahiru the news before she hears it from the town’s gossipers. So, with all haste, he ran back to the Academy to meet up with his friends and report on what happened; meanwhile, onyx eyes were watching his movements and took flight to the world of broken dreams and treachery.
Mytho entered the building to find Ahiru’s eyes closed and her body moving in a rhythmic waltz to no music. Mytho watched Ahiru’s graceful movement and began to feel a sort of pull toward her.
Ahiru could not stop thinking of Dante or the romantic moment shared between them. Her mind was so wrapped up in her day dream that she didn’t realize her body moving and mimicking the previous dance she shared with Dante.
Ahiru’s legs twirled and defiantly pointed, her hands majestically waved in sequence and poise to her dance. Then, she felt warm hands on her waist and legs, guiding her through her silent ballade.
“It feels as if I stepped into a dream…it feels as if I did this before, in another life. I wonder if it had something to do with that Prince, with the lonely, yet beautiful gaze.” Ahiru envisioned.
Mytho couldn’t stop himself from touching Ahiru, especially when her movements began to arouse something within his soul. He matched her movements and in a few moments they were synchronized in dance movements and began a different version of the pas de deux.
For the last 10 minutes, neither one spoke during their movements. Ahiru’s eyes remained closed in bliss and ignorance of her partner, while the other’s gazed lovingly over her form and features. They finally stopped when Ahiru did an arabesque penchée1 and Mytho slowly twirled her around to face him.
When she finally opened her eyes, both parties were shocked by what they saw. Ahiru’s surprise was to see her silent partner being the same boy she bumped into earlier and the same eyes in her dreams.
Mytho was shocked to see his Princess’s eyes such a dark blue instead of the lighter color that matched the sky’s color. He felt Ahiru pull away and he tightened his grip on her. Ahiru gasped in surprise which left her mouth partly open and very inviting for the older Prince.
Mytho looked into Ahiru’s eyes and she did the same, as if daring him to do what he is thinking, and then he kissed her full on lips!
Ahiru’s eyes widen in surprise and then closes in the warm feeling of the intimate kiss. Mytho’s amber eyes lowered in triumph and adoration, for he finally felt at peace with the right Princess, not the one written out by another. They continued to kiss and embrace each other, when finally the need for air hit both of them.
Breathing heavily, their eyes were misted with love/lust and familiarity/happiness. They were still embracing the other and Mytho lowered his forehead toward Ahiru’s to keep her with him.
They stayed like that for a while, until Mytho heard footsteps and reluctantly released Ahiru to make her stand by him, with his hand grasping hers.
Ahiru looked a bit confused and at peace with the display of affection, but she felt a twinge of guilt at the back of her mind.
The duo saw Fakir burst through the doors, all out of breath and eyes closed in exhaustion. He didn’t know Ahiru was in the room, but knew Mytho would be.
“Mytho, Ahiru’s house burned down and Lede of Nevar is dead! They found her corpse in her room…” Fakir announced and then paused in guilt for he heard Ahiru’s anguished scream.
His and Mytho’s eyes fell on Ahiru’s form, crumbled and pitiable as a result of the news Fakir gave. The boys tried to comfort her by hugging her and telling Ahiru that they will always be there; however, Ahiru didn’t hear them, nor did she care for the only one she truly cared for was gone forever.
“Lede, Lede please come back! Why did this happen to you!? Oh, Lede it can't be true!” Ahiru despaired. She pushed off the boys’ comfort and ran out of the building, leaving behind her ballet slippers in haste.
All the while, a large raven perched upon the highest rooftop, watched in malicious enjoyment of the poor girl’s tormented heart.
“Aw, poor Princess Tutu do not fret. For we shall meet again and this time I won’t be your prized savior, but your Angel of Death.” Silently chuckled Lede as she clutched the pendant while watching it’s glow fade even more as Ahiru’s tears ran fervently down her face.
“Soon, little one you will belong to me!”
Author: Cut, print and send it off to the press! Wow! I never knew listening to Drosselmeyer would actually pay off!?
Drosselmeyer: I beg your pardon!? Well, I must admit I did love the ending. But let us not think you are done with this, my apprentice?
Author: Oh no sensei I have yet begun to fight! I hope everyone enjoyed this new installment and thank you for being patient with me! And as always, please review for my writing lives on this! Thank you!
1 Arabesque penchée: The position of the body supported on one leg, with the other leg extended behind the body with the knee straight.